


The Mysterious Case of the Mutual Ghosting

by maliayukimura



Series: Nanowrimo 2020 [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Breaking Up & Making Up, Developing Relationship, Drinking, Exes, F/M, Frat Boy Derek Hale, Friends With Benefits, House Party, Implied Sexual Content, Insecure Stiles Stilinski, Insecurities, Jealousy, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Post-Break Up, Relationship Sabotage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27519367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maliayukimura/pseuds/maliayukimura
Summary: Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale have two very contradicting stories to how their relationship ended. After a confrontation at theAlpha Beta Alphafraternity's first house party of the new school year, they finally hear the other's side of the story and decide to take matters into their own hands to uncover the truth of what really happened between them.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Jennifer Blake/Derek Hale
Series: Nanowrimo 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010616
Kudos: 103





	The Mysterious Case of the Mutual Ghosting

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: "Someone really did not want us to get together so they sabotaged our relationship by stealing our phones and blocking each other's numbers so we'd think that we were being ghosted by the other. We just found out about this and are rightfully pissed. Time to find out who did it and make them pay."

Stiles hadn’t been in the partying mood but when Scott begged him to come to _Alpha Beta Alpha_ ’s back to school rager, he knew it was a losing battle to argue with him. It was the fraternity’s first house party of the new school year and there was no way Scott was going to miss out on a chance to party with his best friend - especially when the said-best friend had been in a depressive funk all summer over a break up. 

But was it even a break up? 

Had Derek and Stiles even been together long enough to even consider what happened between them to be a break up? 

As far as Stiles knew they never defined their relationship but to say they were just friends felt wrong. What do you call the guy you were mutually exclusively hooking up with a few times and then spent a large amount of your time flirting with and getting to know over text while the two of you were apart? Only to have him ghost you after opening up about some really personal stuff? 

They were definitely something, and then they weren’t. Any kind of relationship that had been forming between them vanished the moment Derek ghosted Stiles.

Derek might not actually be his ex-boyfriend, but he was definitely Stiles’ ex-something, ex-almost. 

And, god, did it hurt Stiles to think about that. Maybe if Derek was actually his ex-boyfriend, it wouldn't hurt as bad as it did. But living with the knowledge that he'll never know what could have been between them, just made Stiles feel sick to his stomach. 

But tonight, Stiles was planning on plastering a fake smile on his face to placate his best friend and just try to grin and bear it through the party. 

At least that was the plan until he saw Derek walk into the house, looking like he was having the time of his life with a pretty girl on his arm as he joked around with his friends. 

Seeing him like that made Stiles feel like he was going to be sick. How could he look so happy without him when the mere thought of what happened between them made Stiles feel so miserable? Maybe it was because Stiles had so clearly been more invested in them and whatever they had than Derek had been. If Derek had been invested in their possibly budding relationship, he wouldn't have ghosted Stiles like he had done.

Stiles couldn't let himself go down that line of thinking at the moment. He needed to get out of there before he had a panic attack or Derek saw him. Stiles wasn't ready to face Derek just yet. He worried he might break down if he had to confront Derek.

Feeling panic starting to set in, Stiles grabbed Scott's arm and pulled him off to the other side of the room, trying to put as much distance between himself and Derek as he could while still being able to keep an eye on him to make sure Derek didn't notice Stiles. 

“Oh my god! Derek's here?! What the hell is Derek doing here?!” Stiles shrieked, gesturing wildly at his best friend. He was trying his best - and failing miserably - to keep his voice and avoid drawing attention to himself, for the fear that Derek would notice him and try to talk to him and act like nothing had happened between them. “You invited me to a party when you knew Derek would be here?!”

“I didn’t know that he’d be here,” Scott said, turning to try to see where Derek was in the house.

"No, don't fucking look! That'll just draw attention to us. That's the last thing I want right now!" Stiles hissed as he grabbed Scott's shoulders to turn him to look back at him instead of Derek. “How could you not know he was going to be here tonight? Aren’t you supposed to be ‘brothers’ or some shit? You’re literally in the same fraternity!”

“That doesn’t mean that he’d be here. He usually skips out on the house parties,” Scott protested.

Stiles fired back, “There was a pretty high chance he’d be here, especially since it’s the first house party since we got back from summer break!”

“Why is it so bad that Derek’s here, anyway?” Scott asked.

Stiles shot him his deadliest glare. “You can’t seriously be asking that right now.”

“Oh, come on," Scott placated, "It’s been three months, dude.”

“And you know exactly how it ended,” Stiles seethed. 

Scott knew exactly how badly things ended between Stiles and Derek. Out of obligations that came with the title of best friend, Scott took Stiles out to the woods where he spent hours listening to Stiles cry and drunkenly babble on about all the possible reasons Derek had ghosted him out of nowhere. _Was he too annoying? Was he too clingy? Was he not attractive enough for him?_ It wasn’t pretty; Stiles had been a real wreck over him and the whole ghosting situation.

“Oh great. And he’s here with Jennifer. By the looks of it, they’re here as a couple - not just friends,” Stiles griped as he watched her press a kiss to Derek's cheek, just barely missing the corner of his lip. They looked like a happy perfect couple together, like they were made for each other. Stiles quickly looked away to try to keep his heart from breaking any more than it already did. “God, I really need a drink right now.”

"Wait - who's Jennifer?" Scott asked, scrunching up his nose in confusion. He assumed Jennifer was the pretty brunette currently hanging off of Derek’s arm, but Scott never met her before. He knew his best bud, Stiles, would be able to fill him in.

“She’s like one of his best friends, but she has a huge crush on him. She hated me when Derek and I were whatever we were. She was always so too-faced. Totally nice to me in front of Derek, but she turned into a total bitch as soon as he left the room.”

A sympathetic look flashed across Scott's face. "That's awful, dude."

"Yeah. I know," Stiles replied, shaking his head and began to walk away. "I'm going to go see if I can find something strong to drink. Don't expect me to stay long at this party, dude. I don't think I have it in me to do that."

"No, I get it," Scott said, patting his arm supportively. "You got to do what's best for you."

"You're the best, Scotty," Stiles called out as he walked away, making his way to the kitchen in search of a strong drink and more distance between him and Derek.

Stiles had a few moments of peace and quiet while he leaned up against the kitchen counter, nursing his cup of Jungle Juice, before his nightmare came true. 

Standing before him, staring right at him, was the man who broke his heart - Derek Hale. Stiles couldn't believe his eyes. He was hoping to avoid Derek for the night, but Stiles wasn't that lucky. At least Jennifer wasn't with him at that very moment. Stiles didn't think he could handle interacting with the two of them together.

"Hey," Derek greeted in a neutral tone, acting like nothing had gone wrong between them. "Can we talk?"

"What are you doing here?" Stiles asked, trying hard - and failing - to keep his anger out of his voice.

"My fraternity is throwing the party. I have every right to be here since I live here," Derek replied harshly. His jaw clenching and his lips forming into a hard thin line as his eyes narrowed in anger. "You know I could ask you the same question. What are _you_ doing here?"

“Scott invited me,” Stiles answered, rolling his eyes. “But that's not the point, I meant what are you doing here talking to me? I figured you would just keep avoiding me like you did all summer.”

Derek looked down right furious as he shouted, “Avoiding you?! You’re the one who stopped talking to me out of the blue!”

“Out of the blue?!” Stiles screamed back, reaching out to physically shove Derek away from him as he yelled.“I kept texting you for two and a half weeks after you stopped responding. Don’t worry, I got your message loud and clear. Clearly you didn’t want to talk to me, asshole. And guess what? I don't want to talk to you right now or really ever again!”

Derek paused, a mixed look of confusion and disbelief flashed across his face. “What the hell are you talking about, Stiles? I always responded to your texts - up until you stopped answering back.”

Stiles pulled out his phone and opened up their conversation thread before shoving his phone into Derek’s face. He had thought it was a little pathetic that he couldn’t bring himself to delete their texts, but least it was coming in handy now to show Derek that he knew he was lying to him about who ghosted who.

“See?” Stiles said. “I kept texting and you were the one that stopped responding, you asshole.”

The look of confusion on his face deepened as Derek furrowed his brow. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his own phone, opening up his own copy of their conversation thread before handing his phone over to Stiles. “I never received any of these texts.”

“What are you talking about? I clearly sent them,” Stiles said as he scrolled through the texts on Derek’s phone.

“Yeah, I can see that, but that doesn’t mean I received them - which I clearly didn’t,” Derek snapped, frustrated with their whole situation.

“What the hell is going on?” Stiles asked, looking up at Derek. “Why would my texts stop going through?”

“I don’t know. I thought you got bored and decided to ghost me,” Derek confessed.

“Seriously? I thought you ghosted me,” Stiles replied, “But obviously that’s not the case here.”

“Obviously,” Derek snorted, “So if you didn’t purposefully ghost me and I purposefully didn’t ghost you, how did we both end up ghosting each other?”

“Hey, it shows here that you stopped receiving my texts on May 7th. When does it show you stopped responding on my phone?”

“May 7th.”

“Okay, it looks like our numbers were blocked on each other’s phones. Clearly neither of us did it, otherwise we wouldn’t be so confused by it. But who did it? And why on that date? What happened on May 7th?”

“I don’t know. Wasn’t that like right before finals? I think there was a small get-together to study at Jennifer’s or something. I don’t really remember.”

“Wait, doesn’t Jennifer have the stupid rule of no phones at her get-togethers so she always makes everyone had over their phones and locks them up in a box in her home office until the night’s over?” Stiles asked, trying to play detective as he tried to put the pieces together to solve their ghosting mystery. “Do you think that maybe Jennifer did it? You two are friends so she probably knows your passcode and I don’t bother locking my phone - I’m just realizing that I should probably start locking my phone to keep people from doing shit like this. And she had such a massive thing for you and obviously hated me, so she probably wanted me out of your life. It all makes sense, especially after seeing how quickly you got with her after me. You two are together now, right? She had motive and access. Don’t you think? Like it had to be her.”

"Jennifer wouldn't do something like that!" Derek exclaimed, angry over the fact that Stiles would even suggest that his possible girlfriend would do such a thing. He couldn't help but feel protective over her. They weren't officially together yet, but Derek and Jennifer were well on their way to becoming an actual couple - kind of just like how he and Stiles were a few months ago before this whole unintentional ghosting fiasco occured. 

Obviously someone had sabotaged the budding relationship that he and Stiles once had, but no way could it be Jennifer. She was too good of a friend, being there for and supporting Derek when he was heartbroken over Stiles ghosting him. He wasn't expecting to fall for someone so quickly after Stiles, but Jennifer was so good to him that Derek couldn't help but find himself falling for her. He wasn't fully in love with her, but he could see himself being happy with her and actually in love with her in the distant future. They just needed more time to get there, but Derek could see a possible future with Jennifer if things kept progressing the way that they were.

"We could always ask her," Stiles suggested, trying to keep his tone neutral in order to not upset Derek further. "You know, to, like, eliminate Jennifer as a suspect. Clearly someone didn't want us together and they likely had to be at least sort of a friend to both of us if they had access to our phones. I want to know who so I can cut that toxic person from my life. Like who the hell even does that to someone they call a friend?"

Derek crossed his arms, a scowl ever present on his face. After a painstakingly uncomfortable moment of silence between the two men, Derek exhaled deeply before responding, "Fine. Let's go find Jennifer."

The two guys exchanged phones again, returning them to their rightful owners, before heading off together to go find Jennifer.

They found her in the game room, chatting up one of the _Alpha Omega Beta_ sorority girls.

“Hey, Der-bear,” Jennifer greeted cheerfully, smiling wide as Derek approached. She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the lips when he got close to her and the sorority girl she was with. Her smile quickly vanished when she saw that Stiles was with him. Noticing the tension in the room, the other girl excused herself and left to go find someone else to hang out with. Jennifer fidgeted with the ring on hand nervously, repeatedly clasping and unclasping her hands together. “Oh, um, hi Stiles. What are you two doing here together? I thought you guys weren’t friends anymore.”

Stiles gave her a small nod as a greeting, but let Derek take care of broaching the phone situation topic.

“Hey Jenny, we had something to ask you,” Derek started softly, beating around the bush, “Not that we think you did anything or are accusing you of anything, but do you know if anything happened to our phones at the finals study session you held at your place last year?”

“What do you mean? What happened to your phones?” Jennifer asked, scrunching up her nose in confusion. She may have looked innocent to Derek, but there was something off with her reactions to both seeing the two guys together and their questions for her that pretty much confirmed Stiles’ suspicions. She was practically radiating guilt, Stiles just needed Derek to see it too.

“Somehow our numbers got blocked from each other’s phones despite the fact we were on really good terms with each other at the time. It seems like the blocking occurred around the time of your get-together because all of our texts stopped right after that,” Stiles said, trying to clear the air and get right to the point. 

There was no point in drawing out his interactions with Jennifer if she didn’t do it. She never liked him and he didn’t like her either. Stiles was pretty sure it was Jennifer’s fault for the mutual blocking but he knew Derek didn’t think she was capable of something as awful as that. At this point, Stiles just wanted to find out what she knew before he had to move on to other suspects.

“Did you do anything with our phones when you took them that night?” Stiles asked as he leveled her a hard glare, practically challenging her to try to lie her way out of this one.

Jennifer looked down, shame and regret briefly flashed across her face. She remained silent, refusing to answer.

Derek noticed that she wasn’t answering. He was confused as to why she wasn’t answering the simple question. Repeating Stiles’ question from earlier, Derek asked, “Jennifer? Did you do anything with our phones when you took them that night?”

"I-I didn't mean to… I-I didn't think you'd…" Jennifer stammered, trying to feign innocence with her big brown eyes widening in earnestness. Her face fell in disappointment when she realized that Derek didn’t seem to believe her. "Y-you weren't supposed to find out."

Derek crossed his arms indignantly as his eyes narrowed. The vein on his forehead grew more prominent as he roared, "What did you do?!"

Jennifer scoffed and rolled her eyes. Her whole demeanor changed in just under a minute as if someone just flipped a switch in her. She was no longer acting meek and innocent, instead she straightened her back and held her head up defiantly. "You know what - no, I don't have to take this. Yeah, I did it. So what? What are you going to do about it?!"

With a harsh angry look in her eyes, Jennifer sneered, "You two weren't officially together yet but I knew it was only a matter of time before you two got together and I lost my shot to be with you. I was not going to let that happen. You belong with me, not him!"

“I think you should leave,” Derek growled. “Leave and lose my number while you’re at it. I never want to see you or talk to you again.”

“What? Why? I didn’t do anything wrong!” Jennifer protested, stamping her foot like a child throwing a temper tantrum. “I only did it for us! We wouldn’t even be together if I didn’t do it! I did it all for us, Derek!”

“Seriously?!” Stiles chimed in, furious at the woman. “You did nothing wrong?! You butted into our relationship and broke us up by making us think that the other one was a ghosting asshole by breaking into our phones and secretly blocking each other’s numbers - all because you wanted to date Derek instead. That’s so manipulative and gross, not to mention crosses so many boundaries! What kind of person--”

“You’re right, Jennifer,” Derek said, cutting off Stiles. “We probably wouldn’t have been together if you hadn’t have done it. But we’re also over because I found out that you had actually done it and I don’t want to be with someone who is manipulative enough to pull off something like that.”

“No! Derek, you can’t! Please!” Jennifer begged, “We’re meant to be together! You can’t break up with me!”

Stiles shifted awkwardly in place beside Derek. He had wanted to be there for the confrontation since what Jennifer had affected him too, but it made him feel uneasy to have a front row seat to his ex-almost boyfriend break up with his current girlfriend for the actions she took to break the two guys up in the first place.

“Jennifer, it’s over,” Derek said sternly. “You should leave. Just stay out of my life.”

Her jaw wobbled slightly as she tried to speak up again, but Jennifer quickly swallowed whatever she was going to say. With tears starting to well in her eyes and choking back a sob, Jennifer turned on her heels and promptly made her exit.

Derek shook his head in disbelief as he turned back to Stiles, unsure what to say to the other man.

“Hey, sorry that your girlfriend turned out to be super manipulative and crazy, dude,” Stiles comforted awkwardly as he patted Derek’s shoulder in solidarity. He wasn’t really sure how to comfort his ex-almost boyfriend with the break up with said ex-almost boyfriend’s actual girlfriend.

“Don’t call me dude,” Derek groused, shaking his head again. “She wasn’t really my girlfriend yet.”

“But you were in the process of getting together,” Stiles countered.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t really serious about her,” Derek said, his voice trailing off softly. “I was still kind of hung up on you when I was with her.”

Stiles gasped softly at hearing that confession. He looked over at Derek with a small glimpse of longing in his eyes. He admitted softly, “I know that we weren’t officially together, but I thought we really had the start of something great going on, you know? We started out as just hooking up at parties a few times, but then we started texting and everything changed. I never really opened up to anyone the way I opened up to you. I was kind of a wreck when I thought you had ghosted me.”

A glimmer of hope shined in Derek’s eyes as he met Stiles’ gaze. “Really?”

Stiles nodded, “Yeah. I did.”

“I did too,” Derek answered, his voice practically a whisper.

The two guys stood there together for a few moments while a comfortable silence fell around them.

After a few beats, Stiles found the courage to speak up, “So where does this leave us?”

“Maybe we can try again?” Derek suggested hopefully, “Without someone else maliciously forcing us apart when we’re trying to get to really know each other this time?”

“I’d like that,” Stiles said, nodding. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and promptly unblocked Derek’s number. “There - you’re unblocked.”

Derek pulled out his phone and did the same thing before shooting off a quick text. “And, done.”

Stiles’ phone vibrated with a notification of a new message. He quickly checked it and saw that it was a text from Derek. 

_Do you want to get out of here and find some place more private to get to reacquainted with each other? ;)_

Stiles snorted and playfully punched Derek in the arm. “God, you’re such a dork. I can’t believe I’m attracted to you.”

Stiles promptly fired a handful of texts back. 

_Sure :D_

_But I don’t put out on the first date._

_Just kidding :P_

_We both know I do ;)_

“And you call me a dork,” Derek teased as Stiles laced his fingers through Derek’s as he held his hand. Derek led Stiles out of the lounge and made their way back to Derek’s bedroom so they could get reacquainted with one another.

Reunion sex with Derek was so much better than Stiles ever thought it could be, but what was even better was knowing that whatever they had before Jennifer so rudely interupted still had a chance to blossom into a real relationship. 

So they spent the night getting reacquainted with each other’s bodies and the next day they went out for coffee to get reacquainted with their minds and to figure out where they were going from there.

Stiles wasn’t completely sure where they’d end up together relationship wise, but he figured as long as they kept communications open this time and no one ghosted the other, he and Derek could figure it out together.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr [here](http://www.maliayukimura.tumblr.com)


End file.
